


The Trouble with Mr. Tribbles

by stifledlaughter



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Alternate Universe, Comedy, Deep Dish Nine, M/M, domestic cuteness, hamster - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-17
Updated: 2014-11-17
Packaged: 2018-02-25 16:50:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2629139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stifledlaughter/pseuds/stifledlaughter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Julian is stuck hamster-sitting, but luckily Garak is there to keep him company.</p>
<p>A Deep Dish Nine AU fic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Trouble with Mr. Tribbles

“Aww, look at the little guy!” cooed Julian, poking the chubby hamster. The hamster snuffled and rolled over, exposing his soft belly. Julian tickled it, and the hamster rolled around some more. “What’s his name?”

“Mr. Tribbles!” proudly declared Molly, climbing on the little stool next to the dresser to look into the cage. “He’s the best class pet ever! Watch this!” Molly picked up a carrot stick from the container next to the lamp and held it out through the hand hole in the top of the cage. Mr. Tribbles reached up with his little claws, sniffing, and then grabbed it, dragging the stick away to a corner to be gnawed upon in peace. He finished it quickly, like a wood chipper devouring a Christmas tree.

“And you get him all Fall Break?” asked Julian, smiling at Molly. He loved seeing her little face light up- she had her mother’s appearance, all dark eyes and smooth black hair. However, she was as stubborn as her father, and more than once he’d caught her swearing like a sailor, even if she didn’t know what the words actually meant. He neglected to mention this to Keiko, mostly because he had occasionally supplied some of the words himself when he and Miles were playing video games while “watching” Molly.

“Yup! I’m gonna walk him every morning and evening, and sing him a good night song every night.” She squirmed in happiness and wiggled a bit in her chair, rendering it unstable.

“Whoa there, Molly!” Julian grabbed her shoulders and settled her down. “Don’t rock the ship there.”

She giggled and rolled off the chair, thumping slightly, and then recovered quickly, as children do. “Imma go ask Mommy to make me a grilled cheese. Do you want one?”

“Sure,” replied Julian, grinning as she scampered off. “Looks like it’s just you and me, Mr. Tribbles.” He looked at the hamster who was now snuffling in a giant pile of recycled paper bedding. “Easy life, huh?” Mr. Tribbles poked his head out of the bedding, regarded Julian with beady little eyes, and dove back in, snuffling at an even faster rate.

“Julian!” shouted Molly up the stairs. “Come quick!” She sounded panicked.

Julian leapt up and sprinted down the hall- maybe Keiko had burned herself? He skittered and saw Keiko on the phone, nodding seriously, her face pale but strong. “Yes, yes. We’ll be there tonight. I’ll call Miles right away. We’ll meet you at the hospital.”

“What’s going on?” asked Julian quickly as Keiko hung up her phone.

“My brother – he was in a car accident. He’s in the ER now. Fractured ribs- head injury- and God knows what else. They live two hours away, we’ll be heading there now.” Keiko steadied herself on the counter, gathering her strength for the drive and emotional distress.

“Is there anything I can do?” he asked instantly. Molly looked like she was about to cry, and Keiko scooped her up in her arms.

“Oh… I don’t know… I … oh! Can you watch Molly’s class pet? I don’t know how long we’ll be there, but-“

“Yeah, I got it. Definitely. I’ll bring it over to my place.” He began to mentally calculate his class and work hours. “Just call and I can get whatever else you need, okay?”

“Thank you,” sighed Keiko. “I just… David…”

Julian gave her a hug, squishing a quietly sobbing Molly between them. “It’ll be okay. They know what they’re doing, the doctors. Okay, Molly?” She nodded softly and cried a little more, nuzzling her face into Keiko’s chest. They stood there for a few moments, finding comfort in the silence.  

\-------

“Okay, hamster care, hamster care…” Julian scrolled through his phone, reading all of the pet care pages he could find. He’d never had a pet- his parents didn’t want him to be distracted from his studies. “No cedar bedding – don’t give them citrus-“

He looked up at the cage now on his table, with Mr. Tribbles snuffling around inside. He had built himself a tiny but comparatively massive pile of bedding, and burrowed into it. Some of the other parts of the cage were bare, as the hamster had amassed it all in a corner of the cage.

“Please don’t do anything crazy when they’re gone. I don’t want to be Uncle Julian who killed Molly’s class pet,” he begged of the hamster. Mr. Tribbles regarded him with cold, black eyes, and dove back into the bedding, sending tufts of it into the air.

His phone buzzed, alerting a text, and Julian looked at it quickly. Was it Miles, with good news?

No, even better. _Garak._

Garak had been swamped lately – it was wedding season, mid-June, and Julian hadn’t seen him for more than a lunch in two weeks. He unlocked his phone and read the text.

_Are you free this evening? I have caught up on my commissions for the moment._

Julian texted back _“yeah! Im hamster sitting but that wont be a problem, will it?”_

A moment’s pause, and the phone lit up again. Two words.

_“Hamster sitting?”_

_\------_

Julian had awkwardly scrambled to clean up his apartment, as he had just finished several large papers and had let cleaning slip away from his duties. He had just started shoving everything under his bathroom sink (his closet being already full) when Garak knocked.

“In a minute!” Julian called out. He gave a swift kick to the wad of dirty clothes to cram them deeper in the tiny cabinet under the sink and shut it, hoping he wouldn’t have a reason to grab his first aid kit in there. He rushed to the door, tried to push back his hair to a slightly manageable style (a losing battle), and opened the door, grinning hugely. “Garak!”

Garak, calm and demure as always, smiled up at Julian. “I hope I didn’t disturb the… ah… hamster sitting?”

Julian stepped back and let Garak enter, glancing around to see if he had missed cleaning anything. No, everything looked fine, if a bit dusty on top of the dresser and some parts of the table… _damn, I always forget to do that._

“I know we normally are at your place, but I don’t think you’d want a hamster at your apartment. I don’t know if you like animals or…” Hm, odd. He hadn’t seen Garak around animals ever- Julian himself didn’t have any pets, although he had always had a fondness towards cats. In fact, none of the staff at Deep Dish Nine had pets, although one of the customers that came in sometimes, Data, had a cat he talked about often.

“I have a fondness for the small ones,” said Garak, casting a glance over the cage where Mr. Tribbles was, per usual, snuffling about. “I had a lizard as a child, if you can imagine that.” He said it very soft and casually, as if he was far away when he thought of it.

“Really?” The image that popped in his head was simultaneously bizarre and endearing – Garak (still the same age – it was hard to imagine him younger) sewing with a little beige lizard perched on his shoulder, twitching, flicking its tongue in and out. Now that he thought about it, Garak certainly had some reptilian qualities about him at times; cool skin, twitchy, hyper-attentive… and attracted to warmth, if the ever-closing distance between the two during their movie nights attested to anything.

“Yes… now, can you fully explain the hamster situation to me a bit more?” Garak hung up his shoulder bag on one of the hooks on the wall and hefted up the canvas tote bag on his shoulder, full of ingredients for dinner.

“Keiko’s brother got in a car accident and they had to rush out of town, but Molly was supposed to watch the class pet over Fall Break. I was there when it happened so I helped out. I hope you don’t mind?” He wasn’t sure what he would do if Garak did mind, but he also didn’t want to assume that Garak was fine with a visitor during their time together, as small and non-intrusive as the visitor was.

“It’s not as though I have a choice in the matter, and I don’t believe that we’ll be bothered by… does it have a name?”

“Mr. Tribbles,” answered Julian, and Garak grimaced, stifling a snarky remark. “Yes, I know. This is what happens when fourth graders are given the power of naming things.” A question suddenly popped into his head. “Your lizard- what was its name?”

Garak paused, meeting Julian’s eyes, and – scanned them? Julian felt like he was being analyzed. Did he ask a bad question? Did the lizard die in an unfortunate accident- or did it not die at all, and he had to give it up, much like parents sometimes give up their child’s pet because it was difficult or needy?  What could make Garak reluctant to give up the name?

“It’s okay if you don’t want to answer, I know it’s… personal-” babbled Julian, twisting his hands anxiously and wishing he could take his question back.  _And how odd is it, that something like a pet’s name is a big secret to find out, and I feel like every time I ask a question that seems innocuous, it means something so much more to him?_

Another few seconds of tension, and Garak relaxed a hair, as something had passed his assessment, and smiled very softly. “Mila.”

“That’s pretty!” blurted out Julian, who then mentally punched himself in the face. _Dork! Can you try to keep your cool for ten seconds?_ “I mean… yeah.” _Wow. Smooth. You really saved that one, Julian._

Garak chuckled lightly, motioning to the kitchen. “Shall we cook?”

“You mean, shall you cook, and shall I help you chop things and try not to set my shirt on fire?”

Garak cast a disdainful glance over Julian’s top, a gaudy orange and purple geometric monstrosity. “We shouldn’t dare to dream so high, my dear.”

Julian snorted and headed to the kitchen. “Come on, we’ve got stir-fry to make.” Julian liked stir-fry because brown rice was cheap, and he got free packets of sauce from the Klingon Kitchen of Highest Honor whenever he treated himself to takeout. Garak liked stir-fry because he piled as many vegetables in the wok as he could to try and stuff Julian with nutrients he was desperately lacking. Garak also purchased the meat; while organic, free-range chicken wasn’t cheap, he told Julian that the few dollars extra for taste was always worth it to him. Garak insisted on farmer’s market vegetables, claiming them to be of higher quality, and Julian went along with it happily, because a home-cooked meal was a home-cooked meal, and tasty at that.

They settled into the corners of the kitchen, Garak taking out the ingredients out of the tote bag slung over his shoulder and Julian pulling out the rice and sauce from the cabinets. They’d fallen into a routine for their evening movie nights- make dinner, clean up, watch movies, and then stay snuggled on the couch after the credits had ended and the DVD home screen looped, until one of them looked at the clock and groaned. The night would end gently, with “I’ll see you tomorrow” and, although unknown to them, a mirrored sigh of desire when the door shut.

Within minutes, the smell of sizzling vegetables and chicken filled the apartment. Julian scraped the cutting board’s leftover scraps into his little compost bin to drop off at Nebula Coffee’s garden and started to wash the board by hand to minimize cleanup after dinner. He then checked the rice in the tiny thrift-store rice cooker and assessed that it was sufficiently fluffy. Taking the rice out and spreading it on two plates, he quickly washed the rice cooker’s bowl as well. Dried and washed, he set it aside, watching Garak cook.

His movements were elegant, even with the unwieldy wok that Julian had gotten from the Klingon frat house’s yard sale a year ago. He’d used it himself on nights that he didn’t feel like having a frozen dinner, but it seemed so empty sometimes, with a serving for one being cooked. He liked seeing two servings in the wok (or three- when Garak was cooking, Julian ate quite a bit) as it reminded him that he wasn’t as alone as he was when he first arrived, scrounging around yard sales and thrift shops for cooking supplies, knowing that cooking for one only made him sad, but hoping that maybe, one day, two servings would be in the wok, and not just one.

_And I suspect that Garak has excelled at cooking for one for years…_.

But now, movie night dinners cooked for two, and they had begun to mentally catalogue each other’s likes and dislikes – Julian despised beets, and Garak was disgusted by root beer. (Julian had bought a whole six-pack of them for Federation Day and cajoled Garak into trying one, with terrible results.) What previously had been done alone – dinner and movie nights – had become a two-person activity. Julian liked it, and if he was correctly reading the look in Garak’s eyes before they bid goodnight, so did Garak.

“It should be done in a few minutes,” commented Garak, which snapped Julian out of his reverie.

“Great! I’m going to go check on Mr. Tribbles, I’ll be right back.” Julian backed out of the tiny kitchen, trying to not stare at Garak’s dark gray dress pants as he walked backwards out. They hugged him just right-

_And until you make a move you’ll never know, will you? Quit being Julian and be Bashir!_ Julian frowned, stopping walking backwards to assess that thought.He noticed that when he felt foolish or childish, he called himself Julian, but Bashir when he felt confident and good. It constantly shifted around Garak, but the past few movie nights “Bashir” had come out after the credits had rolled, and “Julian” watched excitedly from the back seat, happy that someone else was driving in the right direction for once.

Julian walked to the table and bent over to inspect Mr. Tribbles for any problems. Full water container, sufficient food supplies… hm, maybe more bedding. He grabbed the bedding bag from underneath the table, shook in some more of the curly fluffs like snow over the cage, and was happy that it didn’t seem like he would have to clean it tonight. He washed his hands and headed over to the kitchen, where Garak was finishing up plating the stir-fry on top of the plates with rice. “Looks good,” commented Julian, picking them up and taking them to the little wooden table that he had picked up from the university’s move-out donation drive. Aside from the names carved into the top and crude sketches (which he had covered completely with stickers from Quark’s, Nebula Coffee, and Deep Dish Nine), it was a good, solid table, and he liked how it was big enough to fit two plates, but small enough that his knees touched Garak’s when they sat across from each other.

Garak placed two glasses of water on the table and silverware and they settled into their chairs, smiling at one another. “God, this looks great. I haven’t had real food in… two weeks?” mentioned Julian, picking up his fork and preparing to dive into the warm stir-fry goodness.

“Since we last met to watch a movie together? I hope that your body hasn’t gone into nutrition deficiency since then.”

“You’ve only just barely rescued me from my life of hopeless despair in the shape of a frozen dinner. I could barely make it to the door. This meal will be my saving grace.” Julian ended this statement with a dramatic flourish of his fork, which caused Garak to raise an eyebrow and quirk his lips up into a smile.

“Then I am glad to be of service.”

The meal continued, the only noises being clinking forks and glasses being set down. Julian, per usual, finished rapidly, even with seconds, but had been learning to slow down and savor the meal, thanks to Garak’s (repeated) advice. Julian only had to wait three minutes and twenty-eight seconds until Garak was completely done with his as well. They washed the dishes, chattering about their thoughts on Verota’s prequel to Like the Regnar, which shed much light on the characters they had previously discussed for hours before, and now had a reason to discuss for hours again.

“This takes Gul Raket’s actions to a higher level, I thought – it runs in his blood to be a traitor, but the very idea that he fights it means that blood doesn’t predetermine life in Cardassia, and then that means that you can choose to go against it – which then undermines the entire idea that family and blood are indicative of what you will become. In the end, he is a traitor to his blood, but not a traitor to Cardassia.” Julian finished drying off the plates and stacked them in the cupboard. “So the entire prequel sets up this dilemma, but we read it knowing what happens to him, and how his fate after the Battle of Atork was –  what is it?” Garak had been regarding him, not washing anything, just listening intently, smiling. “Am I wrong?”

“Not at all. I didn’t expect you to pick up that little bit- that style of thinking is very convoluted to anyone who wasn’t raised to think about the social hierarchy of Cardassia in relations to blood.” He smiled a little wider. “One could say that your thinking has always been Cardassian – but perhaps required a bit of guiding.”

Julian felt equal parts flattered and, slowly, terrified. _He thinks my thinking is Cardassian… but to anyone else, it would be suspicious, or odd. I have to tone it down._ But then again… _Would he care? Would he really care?_ “I… thanks. You’ve helped a lot you know- I mean, you definitely know your literature really well, and I just enjoy it-“

“Don’t humble yourself, my dear, I know intelligence when I see it,” replied Garak, his eyes twinkling and Julian grinned despite his dark thoughts. _I can be me around him. It’s nice. I like it. It’s… so different than holding back all of the time._

“For tonight, as we agreed- my pick first, and then your pick,” said Julian, picking up two DVDs that he had picked up from the university library. “They didn’t have _Tower By the Sea_ but they did have _Shale Stone_ , so I got that. The linguistics professor that teaches Kardasi told me they’re ordering more of the classics for next semester’s classes, and some new releases.”

“I look forward to it,” said Garak, and Julian noted a bit of wistfulness there. _You probably wish you could watch them in Cardassia, don’t you? But Cardassia is far away from me, I’m here…_

He put his pick in the DVD player – _Hippocratic Oath,_ a drama where a POW doctor in a rogue soldier camp is forced to choose between curing the enemy of their forced-by-the-government drug addiction, or escaping and letting them die. Julian was curious to see Garak’s take on it; although he hoped he’d never be in such a position, he strongly believed that “the patient comes first”, not “politics come first”. But given Garak’s inclination towards The State and Patriotic Duty, he suspected there might be a different take on the story here.  

He flopped onto the couch, and, in a moment of bravery, scooted up close to Garak right away. Other times, he had waited for the movie to distract Garak long enough to scootch closer and closer, until he could smell Garak’s clean, fresh aftershave and sometimes even slide his hand in with Garak’s, mindful of the Cardassian hand gestures he had learned. But tonight, he felt a bit bolder. He leaned over and nuzzled his head against Garak’s shoulder as the opening credits passed over the screen. It was then that he noticed that his shirt had a giant smear of stir-fry sauce on it. _Damnit! Can’t I ever get something right? I don’t think he noticed…_ “I’ll be right back.” He got up and quickly rushed to his bedroom to throw on a clean shirt, leaving a quizzical Garak behind.

“Is everything alright?” asked the tailor as Julian frantically searched for a clean shirt. Aha! One of the nicer-fitting ones he had found at the student clothing swap that actually fit his long torso, a warm maroon top. In fact, since he had a nice shirt… combine that with the black jeans that were finished drying on his drying rack ( _why pay for the dryer when you could dry them for free?_ thinks the med student), he suddenly felt a lot more confident, all thanks to a clothing change. _Thank you, stir fry, for getting on my shirt._

“Yeah, I just had to change, got some sauce on me…” He emerged from the bedroom and admired the way Garak’s eyes widened slightly, and flickered up and down. _Yes, the Bashir jeans! Works every time._

He slid onto the couch as the movie started, and slipped his hand over Garak’s. _Be confident. You’ve got this._ “You’d better watch the movie,” teased Bashir, giving the slightest squeeze. Their fingers weren’t interlaced – he didn’t think they were there yet, or that he needed to maybe work his way into it throughout the evening – but all of his fingers were touching all of Garak’s, and that meant something in Cardassian hand language. _I’m close to you? Let me in? I’m outside the door of your heart – will you ever give me the keys?_

He had an idea of what it meant, but like everything else with Garak, what he had been told was a shadow, a hint, of what the truth was. He rested against Garak, curled up next to him, in a spot that normally would have taken an hour and a half to shyly work into. _Not tonight._

Mr. Tribbles continued to snuffle occasionally in his cage on the coffee table as the movie played on. The introduction had been laid out, and now the doctor argued with his comrade, who had been taken with him, about the plea of the soldiers to find a cure for the drug. The mechanic was staunchly against this and wanted to escape and rid themselves of the situation. “No, that is not the end of it. I am the senior officer here and I have decided what we're going to do,” snapped the doctor to his comrade, and then ordered him to get the necessary parts to complete the experiments. Julian took this moment to ask Garak, his voice light but his question serious. “So, what would you do in that situation?”

“As the doctor, the mechanic, or the addicted soldiers?”

Julian paused at the question – he hadn’t even thought of seeing the movie through the eyes of the soldiers, only as the doctor, and if he tried, the mechanic. “Ah- well, whoever, I suppose. I always put myself in the place of the doctor. For obvious reasons.”

“As much as this is a war situation, the soldiers are searching for a cure they can’t find elsewhere, and resort to dramatic measures.” Garak took on a surprisingly soft tone. “The war itself is hardly mentioned by anyone but the mechanic, who clearly is doing his duty for his country, but the doctor is doing his duty as a doctor. The soldiers are lost in their private war against their bodies and their addiction, and that, to me, is loyalty to one’s self.”

Julian was slightly surprised. “I had completely expected you to agree with the mechanic, to be honest. Or at least scorn the soldiers for trying to rid themselves of the drug.”

Garak turned to him, and Bashir knew it was one of those moments where Garak was handing him information that he would never, outside in the bright sunlight where his mask of professional detachment was worn, admit. “I would not hold it against anyone to try and break free of something that makes them do things they regret, or to change. It can be incredibly difficult.”

Julian moved closer, daring to slide his hand up from its spot in Garak’s hand to across his chest, and then up to his collarbone. He asked in a low, soft voice, “Are you trying to change?”

Garak sighed, and Julian felt the cool pale throat move against his knuckles. The Cardassian’s eyes closed, and he tensed, trying to find the words to say.

“Garak…” whispered Julian, who moved up to get closer to Garak’s ear. The movie played on in the background, the doctor ordering the mechanic to do something, and Mr. Tribbles was whuffling around in the cage, making tiny banging noises, but it might as well have been silent save for Garak’s breaths and the sound of Bashir’s clothes rustling as his arms began to encircle the tailor. “Are you trying to change?”

“Yes,” breathed out Garak, eyes still closed, and possibly tenser than before. “I-“ He looked pained, and Julian suddenly felt that tonight was not the time to go there, but other places, yes, yes _go for it! Now!_  

“You don’t need to say anything else,” murmured Julian. With that he leaned forward, gathering his courage, aided by his Bashir Jeans and this particular Moment of Truth, and kissed Garak.

Garak startled but quickly sank into it, reaching his hands up around Julian’s back, feeling his heat through the shirt. Garak’s lips were cool, Julian’s warm, and Julian pulled Garak towards him, his hands sliding up the older man’s back and rubbing his shoulders as they kissed. _No time to be shy_ thought Julian as he pressed open Garak’s mouth with his tongue, and Garak shuddered, gasping in shock. His hands gripped Julian’s back tightly and dipped down to slip under the shirt, tracing spirals and lines with his fingers on Julian’s lower back, lightly scratching with his nails.

_Holy – I’ve never had anyone do that, that feels amazing,_ spasmed Julian’s brain as it reacted strongly to the motions. He felt the fingers so adept with needles tracing designs and – words?- on his back.  Perhaps in Kardasi? What could he be writing? Julian moved his lips down to Garak’s jawline, much to Garak’s pleasure.

“ _Ka… ka… vrell…_ ” murmured Garak, the words halting, like in a trance. He tilted his head back, allowing access to his throat, something that Julian knew meant extreme intimacy in Cardassian terms.  

“You’re speaking in Kardasi-“ Julian started to say, but was interrupted but a squeak from the hamster cage, followed by more whuffling _. Don’t you dare ruin this for me, Mr. Tribbles!_ thought Julian ferociously. “Ignore him- what were you saying?”

Garak opened his eyes and looked at Julian, his mouth about to form the words, words that would reveal the secrets Julian desperately craved to know-

-but then another squeak split the air, this one slightly more urgent, and they both looked over to see-

“Are you fucking serious?” snapped Julian, scrambling up. Right now? Really? _Really?_

“I don’t believe that is a male hamster, Julian,” said Garak calmly, who was now also rising from the couch, back to his cool, collected self. The only tell that he had been seconds before wrapped up in a passionate embrace was a slight ruffling of his normally smoothed down hair. “Unless male hamsters can give birth, which, then, I am sorely informed on the reproductive systems of hamsters.”

Julian sighed and resigned himself to doctor mode. “I’ll need my phone- I’m going to call the vet. In the meantime, keep an eye on… her and make sure that she doesn’t eat the babies.” In his brief skimming of hamster care, he had noted a section on hamster birthing that said that they may eat their young if stressed.

“Yes, Doctor,” replied Garak, and Julian, who had already gone into Doctor Bashir mode in his head, couldn’t help but snort at that.

“This isn’t how I imagined my first patient, but it will do…”

\-------

“Oh God- Julian- I am so sorry,” said Keiko on the phone. After Julian had spoken to an assistant at the local veterinarian’s office, who had said that hamsters generally do fine on their own and really only required lots of protein and clean bedding for a successful birth, he had called the O’Briens. “We had no idea- we only had gotten her a few hours before we had to go- I don’t even think we had even taken her out of the cage.”

“I’m actually curious how she got pregnant – they only keep one hamster in the cage, right?” Julian kept an eye on the hamster as she rested in between births. She had three so far, and judging by her size, perhaps one, maybe two more to go.

Garak had remained calm during this and even had a bit of a smirk on his face as Julian had repeated back the instructions from the vet with a detached, medical air. “It’s a good thing we had a doctor in the house,” Garak had said, his eyes teasing, and Julian had thrown a pillow at him as the assistant continued to tell him hamster care over the phone. Now, he was quietly watching the hamster, listening to Julian’s conversation with Keiko.

“Yes, they only have one hamster per cage in the building – wait – Molly? Can you come here please?” There was a slight scuffling, and Molly was on the phone. “Hi Julian!”

“Hi Molly,” said Julian, “We want to know – did you ever let Mr. Tribbles play with any other hamsters?”

“Of course! It would be mean not to! Sometimes when it’s recess we sneak them out and put Mr. Tribbles and the hamster from Class 3 in a box by the woods by the school to play. But we always bring them back! It’s really lonely being a class hamster with no friends.”

Julian groaned, at least seeing the silver lining that he wouldn’t be the one to explain why this was a terrible idea to Molly. Leave that talk to Miles and Keiko- he would have no part in it. “That helps us out a lot. Thanks, Molly.”

“Sure thing!” she chirped, and after another scuffling noise, Keiko said, “Well… that explains it.”

 “Yeah, it does. I’ll watch them until you guys get back, and it’ll be up to the school where the babies go. How is David?”

“He’s stable, a lot better than he ought to be, after seeing the other people in the accident. He’s athletic, so he’ll spring back quickly.” After some more apologies, she gave the phone to Miles.

“Hope I didn’t ruin your evening, Julian. What were you doing when it started?”

“I… ah… I was watching a movie with Garak.” _It’s not a lie. We were watching a movie, up until a certain point._

“Oh.” Julian could almost feel the palpable awkwardness there. “He’s in the room?”

“Yup.”

“Right now?”

“Yup.”

“You two delivered hamster babies together?”

“… we didn’t really do a lot, to be honest, Mr. Tribbles had it pretty well covered.”

Miles snorted, but didn’t follow up. “Ah, okay. Well, have a good evening. Don’t do anything stupid.”

The words that had been lightly scratched into his back tingled and Julian reddened as he imagined what they could have said.  “Look – I got to go, Miles- good luck with David and everything. Bye.” He hung up and turned back to Garak. “Looks like we know how this happened, then. The class hamsters had “play time” at recess.”

“I’m sure Molly will be quite excited to have this story to tell her classmates after break is over,” said Garak. “And perhaps it’s about time that Mr. and Mrs. O’Brien explained something to their young daughter.”

“I bet that Miles will be having that conversation tonight, whether or not he wants to,” agreed Julian, who perched his chin on Garak’s shoulder as they watched Mr. Tribbles, who had had her final baby during the phone call and was now cuddling them, nestling her babies into the bedding. “Do you think she’ll eat any of them?”

“She seems reasonably calm,” replied Garak, whose lips had quirked up in a smile at Julian’s chin on his shoulder.  

“We seemed to have handled that fairly well, considering how unprepared we were,” commented Julian, his hands moving up to cautiously press on Garak’s shoulders. While the vest he was wearing covered most of the skin there, Julian swept his thumbs against what he could, feeling Garak’s appreciative shiver. This was nice, this was so… comfortable. “Do you think we’re ready for our own pet now – a lizard, maybe?” he joked, his fingers tapping on Garak’s shoulders, and then he froze as he realized what he just said.

_Did I just say that? Like we could own something together? My God! We only just kissed tonight! Why would I say that so soon?_ But the image, once out in the world, now stuck in his mind – Garak cradling a little lizard, lifting it up as it prepared to leap into Julian’s warm hands, or it cuddling in the curve of Julian’s collarbone as he and Garak discussed Like the Regnar for the dozenth time…

But it was Garak’s laughing that brought him out of his panic. Actually full-bellied laughing, Garak turned to him and showed him a rare, precious, completely unguarded smile. “Not quite. But maybe one day.”

**Author's Note:**

> So many thanks to give out! I borrowed the Kardasi, the "Like the Regnar" book, and many of the Cardassian gesture implications from tinsnip. Deep Dish Nine is Lady Yate-xel's mindbaby. The Kardasi Garak said is supposed to mean "You're lovely" but I could not figure out the grammar, so if you can, let me know and I'll edit it :) 
> 
> All I wrote about hamsters in this fic came from information off the internet. The idea of a pet giving birth unexpectedly is taken from my life experience. Yeah, it was weird. 
> 
> My love for "A Stitch in Time" is so obvious in this piece. If you haven't read it, I hope it wasn't confusing. If you did, maybe you can sob over that book with me.


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